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Bestselling author Han Han’s literary works feature clueless characters who lose their way in a topsy-turvy world. There are few heroes in his fiction, just victims of their time. That message, obviously, has resonated with tens of millions of readers.
Han is the voice of a generation. At 27, he is possibly the most influential person of the 20-something generation in China. He embodies the spirit of the time — an era of constant change and a search for independent identity.
Han began his literary life as the little boy who jumped up and down telling everyone the emperor was not wearing any clothes. The “emperor” in this case was China’s educational system. By failing most of his courses and dropping out of high school, Han turned his act of defiance into a debut novel, The Triple Gates, which has sold 2 million copies.
From the beginning, Han spurned conventional narrative for a personal voice. He does not scream like his May 4th Movement predecessors. Instead, he resorts to satire and black humor, which characterize both his fiction and non-fiction. Although he has managed to offend orthodox thinkers, his writing is capable of great subtlety and nuance, which is buried under a thick coating of abrasiveness.
Unfortunately, he says, most of his detractors never bother to read his books. It’s also possible his supporters read only a few of his posts, thus stripping him of his complexity in their assessment.
In just one decade, Han has evolved into a sharp shooter who pretends to be firing indiscriminately — all while retaining the veneer of unruliness. His targets appear to be the Writers Association, literary figureheads, forced relocation and traffic regulations, but it is the conformity and authority they stand for that is his target.
When he used his experience of being a racing driver to comment on the Hangzhou speed-and-kill accident, the official version that the driver was doing 70 km/hour was exposed as a joke, turning public scrutiny in the direction of possible collusion between traffic police and the wealthy driver, or between power and money.
But there are occasions when Han ventures outside his realm of expertise and falters, such as his criticism of the wildly popular magician Louis Liu (Lu Chen), who he criticized after the magician’s performance at the Spring Festival TV gala. Han deleted his post the next day.
Most of the time, Han is spot on. In the court of public opinion it is usually his opponents who shut up and retreat.
Han has got away with his “antics” partly because he has camouflaged his seriousness with layer upon layer of playfulness. He is like a gadfly, seemingly causing more annoyance than threat to his opponents. In the same vein, his gravitas may have been overlooked by those who see only his rebelliousness. Han is at once oversold and undervalued.
Yet Han’s appeal has cut across generational lines. Leung Man-tou, a prominent opinion leader, has compared him with Lu Xun (1881-1936), one of the most influential critical thinkers of modern China.
While his enemies have tried to belittle him by calling him a lightweight, Han has fought back against them yet made it look like a game. His books, novels and essays, reveal how fast he has matured from a self-indulgent teenager with an acerbic tongue to one with a singular voice. With the good looks of a pop idol and the audacity of a rally-driving champion, Han is now virtually a cross between James Dean and J.D. Salinger, with touches of Lu Xun.
It appears he is attempting to stop his generation from falling over the cliff, but at this rate he may fall off himself. According to one account, Han receives 5,000 messages each day that criticize him. He selects the most vicious or intelligent ones and publicizes them as a means to train his willpower. But in person, he remains soft-spoken and mild-mannered. It’s hard to detect any fire in him.
A noted literary critic once said: “If I were Han Han’s father, I’d slap him crazy.”
Will Han dodge such “slap” and cause his would-be “slappers” to lose their balance, or will he fight back? Whatever response he takes, he will probably downplay his act by saying, “I’m not a rebel at all,” because he believes what he advocates is common sense.
Q & A | Han han
CD (China Daily): Is rebelliousness a stance or a mentality?
HH (Han Han): It is silly to pretend to be rebellious. I’m not a rebel. My taste is mainstream.
CD: The pleasure when you reach top speed and the joy of a spurt of inspiration while writing — do these two have something in common?
HH: Not necessarily driving fastest, but when I feel good at the wheel, it is like writing with great inspiration.
CD: Between racing and writing, which is riskier?
HH: Definitely writing — in China. You can’t race onto a blacklist or right into jail.
CD: In one of your novels, a character says: “You’re simply a bystander in this age.” Are you a bystander or a participant? If you could choose, which one would you rather be?
HH: Everyone is a participant, yet most are actually bystanders.
CD: Given China’s uniqueness, is it a good thing or bad thing to be nominated for the Time 100 list of the most influential people of the year?
HH: It was not my influence, but the influence of Time magazine. Ours is a strange environment. If you show indifference toward an overseas media organization’s recognition, you’re impolite; if you express gratitude, people will say you are being used by Western media or you are in their camp. Some will even accuse you of using Western values to suppress Asian values. I give the same answers to inquiries from domestic and overseas press, but domestic press helps with filtering, which I totally understand.
CD: Some people overseas call you “dissident lite”. Do you agree?
HH: Ha, maybe because I do not weigh much physically. “Dissident” is a dangerous word here. I’m different from a dissident because I accept the current constitution. I accept the authority of the powers-that-be but I want to have my rights. I do not want a new charter or new constitution.
CD: If you could not speak the truth, would you choose to be silent or use insinuations?
HH: You can tell little white lies to women. Other than that, I’d rather be silent than tell lies.
CD: Do you have a fear of heights?
HH: Very much.
CD: You use black humor liberally in your writings. Is it a style you love or you use it out of necessity?
HH: It is the best style that fits me because I am afraid readers might lose interest.
CD: Your novels seem to imply Buddhist thinking, such as karma, but “it’s only for the common people”. Is it your thinking, or something inside your character’s head?
HH: I imposed it on my characters. Karma is the common people’s last defense and their last psychological comfort. But as I have observed, it is not common that the good get rewards and the bad their comeuppance.
CD: Which literary genre involves more effort, fiction or essays? What about response from readers?
HH: I spend more energy on fiction, but readers prefer my essays because the expressions are more straightforward.
CD: You used to laugh at literary works selected for textbooks. What would you think if one day your writing appears in textbooks? Or what if your work is officially condemned as a bad influence?
HH: It’s good in either case — the first one means society is more open and things have changed; and the second I get the same treatment as Confucius (who was for a long time condemned in China).
CD: You said literature should not try to convey social messages. But your work contains many. What position should social messages have in literature?
HH: An important position, but they should be implied, especially if they are good. In Chinese literature there is too much preaching. Readers tend to become dumb after being exposed to too much of this stuff.
CD: If you were asked to write a eulogy and you knew the content was true, would you do it?
HH: I’ll do it. I often praise things, but it rarely gets into the news.
Literary gifts
Triple Gates (2000)
Han Han’s debut novel, published at the tender age of 17, is filled with autobiographical details of high-school tomfoolery and the cut-throat nature of China’s get-ahead mentality — that, and loads of similes and metaphors that jab at figures of authority.
One Degree Below Freezing (2001)
A collection of early essays that deal mostly with the education system.
Like a Speeding Youth (2002)
This follow-up novel traces the footsteps of two ghostwriters as they roam aimlessly from gig to gig in Beijing and Shanghai.
Poison (2002)
A collection of excerpts from published works.
Press Release 2003 (2003)
A collection of unpublished essays.
Five Years of Han Han (2004)
Triple Gates, Press Release 2003, Like a Speeding Youth and One Degree Below Freezing are republished in two volumes.
Riot in Chang’an City (2004)
This martial-arts novel depicts the adventures of a Shaolin monk as he leaves the temple for the capital city and beyond.
And I Drift (2005)
This collection of essays describes the author’s fascination with auto racing.
An Ideal City (2006)
Two college students go on the run after a gang fight and hide in a non-descript county town. Evocative atmosphere and dramatic scenes that are among the best in modern Chinese literature.
Cold (2006)
This package includes Han Han’s album R-18, on which he wrote lyrics for most of the tracks and provided the lead vocals. He also directed the music videos. It is an offshoot of his writing and some critics regard as a vanity project.
Glorious Days (2007)
Seven college graduates go to a school in the mountains to serve as volunteers. The result is more Dumb and Dumber than Dead Poets Society.
Miscellaneous Essays (2008)
A collection of his online musings.
Poison 2 (2008)
Another collection of excerpts from published works.
A Day-Dream (a.k.a. His Country) (2009)
A park keeper in a small town rides his motorcycle and runs into bizarre situations, some more supernatural than others.
Grass (2009)
A collection of excerpts of published books. The title alludes to his early books of highlights, Grass and Grass 2. “Poisonous grass” is a label for literary works whose writers were persecuted for political reasons. Han Han twists it around and uses it as a mark of quality and integrity.
Lovely Monsters (2009)
A collection of his blog posts from 2008, touching on some of the thorniest issues of the year when he was the “monster” while everyone else played cheerleaders.
Han Han has so far resisted offers to have his books translated into English. The best of his sentences use figures of speech that are difficult to convey in another language. And he also fears international recognition may bring more trouble.
